


Enbarr at Midnight

by RoseisaRoseisaRose



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Azure Moon Route, F/M, aftermath of canon typical violence, i dunno it's mostly just melancholy conversations, immediately postgame, they don't kiss but like maybe they will later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 07:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26848261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseisaRoseisaRose/pseuds/RoseisaRoseisaRose
Summary: "Mercedes was unmistakable in the moonlight, her healer’s dress and veil both gently swaying in the wind. She could have any number of reasons for venturing out alone. She could be praying for the dead. She could have her own rendezvous, outside of the prying eyes of the camp. She could just want to be alone for once after a long, awful day surrounded by the wounded and the dying, who all reached out to her, and whom she never turned away from.His throat caught at all those options, for various reasons that he didn’t bother interrogating. It wasn’t his business, and perhaps she wanted to be alone. But the palace wasn’t safe. The inns weren’t safe. Enbarr wasn’t safe. And so he followed after her, vowing to leave when she sent him away."Written for Mercedue Week 2020. Day 5 was themed "Homecoming."
Relationships: Mercedes von Martritz/Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	Enbarr at Midnight

They camped on the outskirts of Enbarr the night they won the war.

They could have taken up rooms in the palace, but Dedue worried it was unsafe, and Dimitri worried it was unkingly. To secure a castle – no, a fortress – of that size was almost unthinkable, and the sun was setting when Dimitri finally emerged, victorious, from Edelgard’s throne room.

They could have found rooms for the night, but it was impossible to know if innkeepers would bear them a grudge, looking for a chance to retaliate out of loyalty to the Emperor they had now lost. Dedue wouldn’t have blamed them. And Dimitri worried the army generals would put undue stress on a city that had already seen its share of destruction. The Imperial Army had not had time or inclination to properly evacuate the city.

So they camped on the outskirts of Enbarr, the same formation they had used for the past six months, with regular guards and the King’s tent at the center, protected from any assassin stupid enough to wish him ill.

Dedue hadn’t been allowed on night watch for the last two months. Byleth had pulled him aside and kindly but gently told him that his majesty worried, that she worried, that he could not keep up with his duties if he didn’t get adequate rest. But Dedue found he could not sleep, even as his comrades stumbled to their own tents in ones and twos, practically asleep on their feet, well beyond the need to pretend they would be sleeping alone that night.

To give them privacy, or to give himself privacy, Dedue stood at the edge of the encampment. To follow Byleth’s orders, he stood away from the night watch. He didn’t mind being alone. 

It was perhaps because of his isolated position that he saw Mercedes slipping out of the encampment and wandering away, a solitary figure alone in the night. Or perhaps the night watch just didn’t think it their business to fret over someone walking _away_ from the tents.

Dedue didn’t think it was his business, either. Not really. Mercedes was unmistakable in the moonlight, her healer’s dress and veil both gently swaying in the wind. She could have any number of reasons for venturing out alone. She could be praying for the dead. She could have her own rendezvous, outside of the prying eyes of the camp. She could just want to be alone for once after a long, awful day surrounded by the wounded and the dying, who all reached out to her, and whom she never turned away from.

His throat caught at all those options, for various reasons that he didn’t bother interrogating. It wasn’t his business, and perhaps she wanted to be alone. But the palace wasn’t safe. The inns weren’t safe. Enbarr wasn’t safe. And so he followed after her, vowing to leave when she sent him away.

She heard him as he walked after her. Dedue did not walk quietly unless he wanted to, and he had no reason to hide from her. When she turned to him, her face was obscured by shadows, but Dedue knew she was smiling from the way she tilted her head when she saw him.

“Hello, Dedue,” she said, as calmly as if they were in the cathedral for evening prayers. “Is your shoulder feeling better?”

“Mercedes,” he greeted her, ignoring his shoulder for the moment. “I worry about the road to Enbarr tonight. Even if the battle is over, I do not think all will look fondly upon his majesty’s army.”

He could see her smile now, as he drew closer to her, and it was sadder than he remembered. And her smiles so often were sad. “I know, Dedue, and you’re so kind to worry about me. But if we leave tomorrow, I –” she turned back towards the city, which loomed over them. “I used to live here you know. I wasn’t very happy, when I called Enbarr my home. But it was still my home.”

“You would like to pay your respects,” Dedue finished the thought for her.

“More or less,” Mercedes said thoughtfully. She hadn’t moved, although Dedue had long caught up to her on the path. She looked up at him expectantly.

Dedue nodded. “If you would like, I could accompany you.”

They walked in silence after that. Mercedes wasn’t often the type to walk in silence. She wanted to know things – about him, about Duscur, about the world around them, about his thoughts and feelings and ideas. He didn’t dislike it, although he often found her very strange, to be so interested in things of such little consequence. But she didn’t ask questions tonight. Perhaps she was waiting for him to ask her something. It was, after all, her homeland that they wandered through, although there were no gods and no flowers there tonight, so Dedue was unsure of where to start.

The city was not destroyed, but it was damaged. All around them, buildings suffered the impact of magic and weapons from Empire and Kingdom troops alike. Smoke hung in the air. Dedue saw distinct claw marks from what could only have been a demonic beast, dragging across a stone wall, inches deep and three across. The streets were eerily silent and the houses were unnaturally dark. Dedue could have sworn he saw curtains draw together at their approach, as well as faces peering out as they passed. Some of the faces belonged to very small children, indeed.

Mercedes stopped in front of an empty home. Dedue hoped this meant the family who lived there had known to leave and had a place to go. It was more modest than he expected – Mercedes had been nobility, he knew that, even if he had trouble following the trajectory of nobility, clergy, and aristocracy that made up her life. But it certainly didn’t look like the home of a young noblewoman, although perhaps the broken front windowpane and the scorch marks across the top of the building added to that effect.

Mercedes seemed to know what he was thinking. “I only lived here for a brief time, before my mother and I were able to escape to a church to the north,” she explained. “A kind old woman took us in for a few weeks. I suppose it was too much to hope that she would still be here.” She paused and then added, quite frankly, “She was very old.”

Dedue said nothing for a long time, and then said, very quietly, “I am sorry you were unhappy here.”

“Thank you,” Mercedes replied. She took a step forward gingerly and rested her hand against the door frame. Dedue wondered if she was praying. He looked up and down the empty street, watching for danger that never appeared, until Mercedes stepped away and looked up at him. “Thank you,” she added again, turning back the way they came.

They turned down an ally that set Dedue on edge, but Mercedes walked down it with a calm confidence, and there seemed to be no shadows lurking to harm her, tonight.

“Dedue,” Mercedes asked as they walked, her voice bouncing off the high walls that surrounded them even though she spoke softly. “Do you ever feel that fate led you down the wrong path? That you might have ended up somewhere different, but for chance?”

“No,” said Dedue, after a moment’s thought.

“No, you don’t believe in fate?” Mercedes asked. “Or no, you think the gods have been correct in where they led you?”

“I do not see myself anywhere but here,” Dedue explained. He reached for her elbow momentarily to help her over a collapsed beam blocking their path, but dropped her arm immediately. “I do not think there is a world where I would not serve his majesty. Fate, or the goddess, or whatever you would call it, are all immaterial compared to that simple fact.”

Mercedes looked back over her shoulder, clutching her arms against herself. “I could have been in that house today still, Dedue,” she said, her gaze far away and unfocused. “I could have been in the Imperial Army. Sometimes I feel there’s no reason I was here and not there; that there’s no reason I’m alive and not dead.” She laughed suddenly, although Dedue saw little humor on her face. “I’m sorry, that’s very wicked of me to say. But it’s a terrible thing, to feel that you don’t belong anywhere,” she added.

“That, at least, I do understand,” Dedue replied gravely. He took her hands then, because he did not know how else to protect her on these empty, isolated streets that she had once called home. He thought that perhaps she would pull away, and he would not blame her if she did, but instead she took a step forward, and looked up at him. “I am sorry if you have ever felt that the Kingdom was not a home for you,” he added. “I would not wish that, for you.”

Mercedes ran her thumb along the edge of Dedue’s hands, and Dedue suppressed a shiver. The night air was so much warmer than he was used to. “I wouldn’t say that,” she said softly. “It’s just that _home_ is never quite what you expect it to be, wouldn’t you say?” She looked up at him, her eyes wide and searching. “Perhaps I was foolish to try to find it again,” she admitted.

“I have never thought you foolish,” Dedue said. “And I do not blame you for wanting to go back.” He left many things unsaid, then, about his homes, about wanting to return, about how sometimes she made him think such a thing was possible. Instead he only added, “I hope you can find home elsewhere.”

Mercedes looked down at their entwined hands. “Some days I think I have,” she murmured, and she raised his hands to her lips, kissing his knuckles softly, tenderly. Dedue wondered if she was praying.

She rested against his hands for a moment, and time and place and breath and thought all seemed suspended. Then, too soon, she pulled back, but brought his hand up to her face and pressed it against her cheek, her eyes closed, her breathing slow. Dedue was silent, once more unsure what to say. He wanted to tell her that he would fight another war, or ten other wars, if it would help her find a home. But part of him feared that was needlessly dramatic, and part of him hoped that she already knew.

She smiled up at him as she let his hand drop, though there were tears in the corners of her eyes. 

“Where will your next home be?” she asked, always eager to know things of no consequence, to know things about him he rarely thought of himself.

Dedue hesitated a moment, but then brought his hand up to wipe the tears away from either side of her face, halting and careful even as she leaned into his touch. “I’ve always answered that I will go where his majesty needs me,” he said slowly. It was strange to think of the future instead of the unending, inescapable present. But they had escaped. The war was over. He added, after a pause, “But perhaps – going home is more complicated than I initially realized.” He dropped his hands. “And you?” he asked.

Mercedes reached out and entwined her fingers in his. “I’m not sure,” she said, looking at their hands, not at him. “But I look forward to finding out.”

Deduce took her other hand. “And for tonight?” he asked. Mercedes looked up at him, sharply. “Is there anywhere else in Enbarr you . . . would like to see?” he asked, unsure if she would consider such a visit a greeting or a farewell.

“I lived in many places,” Mercedes said thoughtfully, biting her lip slightly. “There are many houses I could visit, I suppose, if we had a mind for it.” She frowned, letting the silence stretch around them. Finally, she looked up at Dedue. “I don’t think there is,” she said firmly. “Let’s go home.”

The windows were dark as they made their way back to camp. The streets were empty. Mercedes grasped Dedue’s hand tightly and did not look back.

**Author's Note:**

> When I say Dedue had trouble keeping track of the nexus of nobility and clergy and aristocracy that make up Mercedes's life, that's pure projection. I can't keep track of Mercie's backstory. What's going on there. Would it help if I read her supports with Jeritza, keep in mind before you answer that I'm lazy and probably am not going to do that.
> 
> Eventually I will write a post-Enbarr fic for every single Blue Lion and we can stitch them into a lovely tapestry of what I think everyone was up to. It would be a bittersweet victory, I think! That last cutscene with Dimitri and Byleth is haunting.
> 
> "Homecoming" is a great prompt for Mercedue, although I'm disappointed that as of yet I haven't seen any crossover Spiderman stuff. I think they're both characters with a complicated idea of what "home" means, you know? They make me sad and happy at the same time.
> 
> You can [find me on twitter](https://twitter.com/Rose3Writes) if you want more fic updates and also a lot of dumb jokes. And [ check out the twitter account for Mercedue Week ](https://twitter.com/mercedue_week)if you want more content for the pair; there's some cute stuff out there this week. Kudos to everyone participating!


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